It’s now more in style than ever to wear unique and strange
styles of glasses and sunglasses, thanks to the likes of celebrities like Lady
Gaga, but did you know glasses have been dated as far back as 1200, and strange
designs have been popping up ever since the upper classes started wearing them
– wearing a unique design was a display of your wealth and fashion know-how!
That means quirky and unique frames date back right into the Victorian era –
long before Gaga started experimenting. We take a look through history, and
examine some of the strangest styles:

Victorian Glasses and
Sunglasses

These designs might make you think of Steampunk style, but
they are in face genuine antique Victorian frames. Many of the surviving
examples are silver alloys, and it was even trendy back then to wear glasses
even if you didn’t need your vision correcting! (Victorian hipsters!)

The Victorians wore some strange styles, and lenses could be
tinted in any colour from black to yellow – most often they were used to
protect the eyed when shooting or riding on the train.

Is seems that the idea of wearing weird glasses and
sunglasses to look unique and show off your personality, isn’t such a new idea!
These heart shaped frames look like they might have came from the 40s or 50s!
Can you imagine anyone from that time wearing these?

Or perhaps you’d rather wear these mid-century beauties
instead? We’re not sure if they look like bug antennae or eyebrows, either way
we imagine you’d look pretty silly trying to pull off this look!

Swinging 60s

We all know the 60s were a bit strange; they were
experimental and a time when people were pushing the boundaries and looking
towards the future. That meant a lot of strange, un-wearable fashion emerged,
and sunglasses and glasses didn’t escape the trend. Which of these strange
frames would you wear now?

Well, eyeliner was big in the 60s, so why not wear it on your glasses
too?

60s Butterfly style glasses; could you see any modern celebrities
wearing these?

We’ve seen a lot of trends for eyelash glasses recently, but none have
looked anything like this…

As far as we can see, Lady Gaga is running the style stakes
when it comes to weird and wonderful sunglasses; the Mickey Mouse style she
wore in her Paparazzi music video launched an instant trend, and the alien
glasses by Mugler (Bottom right) really got the world talking!

Oh noes! I went on vacation (*gasp*) and am super late with this review.

As much as I was crossing my fingers that I would get to review these, I was also wondering just how much I would end up using them. As a gamer, I end up using a headset a lot…but that means I’m using a device that has a microphone more often than a regular pair of plain headphones.

I'm also prone to getting headaches from big, bulky earphones, so I wanted to try them….but I also knew I may have to gift them away to someone else after I was done with the review, by no fault of theirs.

Instead, though, these turned out to be pretty awesome. I did have a friend try them, too, who is much pickier about sound quality than I am, just for the sake of making sure I wasn’t oblivious to any possible issues with them, and they were actually impressed!

Now I guess I really need to tell you the most important part about these headphones:

THEY ARE ALSO SPEAKERS!

The whole idea before “flips” is that you can wear them as headphones and block out all the sound around you….and then with a flip of the earpieces, they face out and become speakers. No buttons to click. No swapping cords or sound devices in order to turn your speakers on instead. Just FLIP!

Again, I wasn’t sure how much I would use this feature because I already have a nifty little device that lets me swap out my cords quickly right on my desk (instead of on the back of my computer). Turns out, the weekend after I got these, though, I visited some friends and still had to work while I was with them, so I took a limited amount of equipment with me. I took these with me so I could try them out and sure enough, while I was listening to a video, I realized I wanted my friends to hear it. I didn’t have speakers to turn on for them, but I didn’t need them! I just flipped out the ear pieces and suddenly sound filled the room. They hadn’t seen anything like these either, so it was nice to show off a cool gadget. ;)

Oh, and while I know this is NOT the point of the product, one of my favorite parts is actually that black and green case up there. I’ll admit, even during a review like this, I didn’t carry the headphones in the case. Instead, I put all my other little cords and gadgets in it because it was a hard plastic that would protect them, hehe. While my Flips are hanging on rack next to my desk, the case is on the other side, holding things like my camera and flash drives.

Special deal for you (valid until July 16th…sorry I was late getting this to you!):

Purchase online at: http://www.flipsaudio.com/ and use the code FA0010INT. You’ll save 10 bucks and get upgraded rush shipping for no extra cost.

Disclosure: Obviously Flips sent me these, via FuelMyBlog. All of the standard stuff about opinions being my own can be assumed. After all, if they were Flips’ opinions, they probably wouldn’t have admitted to putting other gadgets in the case, nor would they have been so crazy late getting it to you!